Bristol is a suburban city located in Hartford County, Connecticut, roughly 20 miles southwest-west of Hartford. The city is about 120 miles southwest from Boston, and approximately 100 miles northeast of New York City. As of the 2020 census, the population of the Bristol was just over 60,000.  Prostitution and sex trafficking have been well documented in the city for decades and continue to pose many problems for the community. In a recent example, in September 2021, a Bristol man pleaded guilty to charges connected to the trafficking of two women, using violence and their drug addictions to coerce them into prostitution to service sex buyers. In another case in 2021, a Bristol man was charged in federal court with Attempting to Sex Traffic Minor, and “Distributing Child Pornography” (or child sexual abuse materials (CSAM)). Law enforcement launched an investigation in late 2020 after receiving information that the suspect was sharing videos of child sex abuse on a website that is focused on incest.  In November 2020, an undercover FBI employee began interacting with the suspect on the social media application Kik.  In the chats, he made statements that he had sexually abused children, and that he had trafficked a child to engage in commercial sex acts.  He also said that he had recently traveled out of state to have sex with another 12-year-old girl.  The undercover investigator told the suspect that he had a 12-year-old daughter (“Doe”).  After the man introduced the idea that Doe could be trafficked for sex, and offered suggestions to the undercover investigator about how it could be accomplished, he arranged to have sex with Doe in exchange for $200. It is further alleged that, in January 2021, the man sent the undercover investigator videos of child sex abuse that he had maintained on a file sharing website. In February, 2021, the suspect was arrested at a hotel in Southington shortly after he provided the undercover investigator $200, as alleged, to engage in sexual abuse of the child.

To address the wide range of crimes accompanying the sex trade, local law enforcement agencies have used tactics that target the consumer level demand that drives all prostitution and sex trafficking.  For example, in March, 1996, officers from the Bristol Police Department arrested eight men who propositioned a police officer posing as a prostituted woman. The eight men arrested were released from custody on $500 non-surety bonds and were scheduled to be arraigned in Bristol Superior Court later that month.  At that time, the Bristol Police Department’s Chief said that a reverse prostitution sting that netted eight male sex buyers was not a reaction to criticism about recent stings. In previous months Bristol police had arrested prostituted women but did not arrest the men who had been seeking to buy sex from them.  The National Organization of Women rallied in front of the police station to protest.  The police Chief at the time said that they did reverse stings on a regular basis, that they try to have an equal balance between buyers and those offering “prostitution services,” and that their data showed they arrest “as many johns as prostitutes.”

In November, 2016, a Bristol man attempted to solicit and patronize what he thought was an “underage prostitute,” police said. the suspect exchanged messages with an undercover state police detective posing as a preteen, and then attempted to meet with the minor to engage in sex with them. The man was arrested, and was in possession of a dangerous weapon at the time he was taken into custody. He was charged with criminal attempt of risking injury to a child and sexual assault, in addition to patronizing a prostitute, trafficking in persons and weapons in a vehicle.  In the 2021 federal case discussed above, the Bristol man arrested for CSAM and sexual abuse was a sex buyer of a trafficked child, and his identity was disclosed to the public.